


The Arm and The Shield

by ghostdude101



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Loyalty, captain america & winter soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostdude101/pseuds/ghostdude101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventy years ago, Sergeant James Barnes goes to war. Steve Rogers, a skinny kid from Brooklyn, follows him soon after.</p>
<p>(Or, alternatively, the story of Steve and Bucky through the ages.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arm and The Shield

Seventy years ago, Sergeant James Barnes goes to war. Steve Rogers, a skinny kid from Brooklyn, follows him soon after.

Steve Rogers enters the experimentation chamber, but Captain America walks out. Sergeant James Barnes and the 107th infantry go behind enemy lines, and are considered lost.

Captain America walks into a HYDRA base alone, but returns with three-hundred and fifty men no-one had dared hope is still alive. Captain America marches into war; Sergeant James Barnes and the rest follow.

Sergeant James Barnes - _Bucky_ \- falls down, down, down, into the icy depths of the Alps, wielding a shield that was never meant for him. Only a month after, Captain America - Steve Rogers - follows him into nothingness, landing a plane full of explosives in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

And that should be the end of the story, shouldn't it? A neat little ending to an incredible story where two boys followed each other up to, and into the jaws of Death itself. A story where neither of the two survives marching to war, but ensures that everybody else will.

But. This isn’t just a simple story. So Sergeant James Barnes wakes up on a cold steel table, in agony and missing a limb. Shortly after, the arm isn’t missing anymore, but it feels cold and metal and _wrong_ , but it allows him to shoot and fight and survive, and that is all that matters, is it not? 

They train him and give him a target, but Sergeant James Barnes says no, because he is a soldier, not an assassin. But that’s all right; soon he won’t be James Barnes anymore. He won’t be anyone anymore; not a son, not a brother, not a friend, and certainly not _Bucky_. He is simply a tool, to be used and put away again, much like one of his rifles. A soldier of winter, come to call.

Of course, Captain America wakes up, too, decades later. He has no missing limbs, only a gaping hole in his heart where everything – and everyone - he knew and loved used to be. But misplaced as he is, he is a hero still. He died a war hero, and wakes up as a living legend. Captain America gains a team, finds new people to be called his friends, and saves the world many times over. But Steve Rogers goes on lonely walks in Brooklyn, sketches the way it used to be and the way it is now. And sometimes, just sometimes, he thinks about brown hair and gray eyes, and the time when that face was as familiar to him as his own.

Later, there is a file titled ‘Winter Soldier’, and a sharp, almost wistful look on Natasha’s face. There are meetings and arguments and strategic planning, all of which culminates in Captain America being at the wrong end of the Winter Soldier’s rifle.

It starts with the Winter Soldier coming face-to-face with Captain America. It ends with Bucky Barnes reuniting with Steve Rogers, after seventy long, long years. 

And when SHIELD decides that the Winter Soldier is too dangerous to be an asset, they both know what it means. There’s no prison built that can safely contain the Winter Soldier, so he must be put down. Simple and clinical.

When he hears, the expression on Steve’s face doesn’t change. Steve Rogers claps Bucky Barnes on the shoulder, and Captain America picks up his shield, ready to go to war to save him. He has no doubt that they’ll win, especially with the Black Widow on their side, and the support of the entire Avengers team behind them.

Once, Bucky Barnes followed Captain America into war. Now, it’s time to repay the favour.


End file.
